In one mighty push with a scream that echoed off the walls so loudly that I was sure our nearest neighbors an acre away could hear, the baby’s head appeared, stretching and tearing my sister’s tender skin. “Here it comes, Allison,” I told her, my voice trembling in fear. “It’s coming, it’s almost over.”
Through teeth clenched together in pain, Allison mewed helplessly. “No,” she cried weakly. She squeezed her legs together and with one hand tried to press the crown of the baby’s head back into her.
“Allison!” I shouted in alarm, grabbing her hand away. “No!” She slapped feebly at me, but another contraction swept over her and despite her wish to keep the baby inside, her body defied her and like a violent wave thrust the baby forward. I watched in awe as Allison’s body widened and the baby’s slimy head slid from her body. The two of them, fused together, appeared to be some twisted version of some ancient goddess.
“Gaaaah!” Allison screamed. “No, no, no!” She swung her head from side to side. “No, no, no!”
“One more push, Alli,” I told her. “One more and it’s over. Now!” I ordered her with a voice I had never used with her. A voice that made Allison silent, made her look at me. Made her listen. “Allison, you push one more time. Just one more time and it’ll be out and it won’t hurt anymore. I promise.”
Allison nodded, her breath coming in short, thin gasps. I quickly rearranged the pillows at her back and with difficulty she raised herself up on shaky arms. With determination that I had seen in Allison many times before, she focused her gaze on me, her eyes a steely-blue, almost crazed, and set her mouth in a tight line. “Arrrggghhh!” she bellowed, and in a rush of uterine fluid and blood, the baby slid forward into my waiting arms. A girl. A tiny little girl covered in a thick, bloody mucous. In shock and revulsion, I held her away from me, like I was holding someone else’s dirty Kleenex.
“It’s a girl,” I told her because I didn’t know what else to say, didn’t know what to do next.
“Oh, God!” Allison cried. “What am I going to do? What am I going to do?” She had collapsed back onto her bed and started to shake. Great convulsive shivers racked her body. “Please take it away. Brynn, please,” she begged. “Take it away!” I looked down at the infant. It wasn’t squirming or flailing. It wasn’t crying. It lay limply in my arms, its small mouth opening and closing, a guppy out of water.
“Allison, what do you want me to do?” I was surprised to hear the anger in my voice.
“I don’t care, I don’t care, please take her away. Please!” I looked back down at the baby. She still hadn’t cried, although her little chest was quickly rising and falling. I grabbed the scissors from the bedside table and carefully cut the umbilical cord. I was surprised at how hard it was to sever. Like cutting a thick, pulsing rope. With a towel I did my best to wipe the baby clean and then very gently I laid her in a corner of the room. I reached for another clean towel and pressed it between Allison’s legs to try and stop the bleeding, afraid she would need stitches. I snatched up all the dirty sheets and towels and stuffed them into a garbage bag and then added Allison’s sweatpants.
“Don’t worry, Allison,” I told her as I pulled a blanket over her shivering body. Her eyes were shut and she appeared to be dozing. “I’ll take care of everything.” I glanced toward the baby in the corner of the room. One thin arm had escaped from the towel I had wrapped her in; she seemed to be reaching out for someone. “I’ll be right back.” Grabbing the garbage bag, I ran down the stairs, the bag thumping behind me. I knew I had a very short amount of time to get Allison’s room cleaned up and the baby and Allison to the hospital. I knew it would be difficult to talk Allison into going. She was in denial, shock, something. I think she was convinced that if she didn’t look at the baby, it meant it wasn’t real.
I lugged the garbage bag back through the kitchen to the garage and shoved the bag deep into one of the large garbage cans, pressing it down as far as I could and strewing other garbage on top of it to help conceal it. From inside the house, I heard the shrill of the telephone. I hesitated. It might be my parents calling; they still felt the need to check up on us. The incessant ringing led me to believe it was my mother and I hurried to answer it.
“Hello,” I said breathlessly.
“Brynn?” my father asked. “What’s the matter? You sound like you’ve been running.”
“Oh, nothing,” I lied. “I was just in the garage, throwing away the pizza box.”
“Well, your mother just wanted me to see how things are going. Everything okay?”
“Dad, it’s fine,” I said impatiently. “God, what could go wrong?”
“I know, I know, nothing,” my father conceded. “We’ll be late, after midnight.” I glanced up at the clock. It was nearly nine o’clock; the summer sun was just starting to set.
“Don’t worry, Dad, we’ll be fine,” I told him.
“Okay, okay,” he answered. “Bye, Brynn.”
“Bye, Dad.” I hung up the phone and rushed back to Allison’s room, taking the stairs two at a time.
Pushing open the door, I took in the scene before me. It looked like a massacre had taken place. Despite my attempt to throw away all the bloodied towels and sheets, Allison’s bed was covered with a large crimson stain and somehow the walls were splattered with blood. Allison looked terrible. Black smudges of exhaustion circled her eyes. She was still shaking even though the temperature in the room seemed to me to be stifling.
I moved toward the hallway to grab another blanket from the linen closet to cover her when something caught my eye. Or, the lack of something. I turned toward where I had laid the baby in the pile of clean towels. Her skin had a bluish color and her arms were still. One hand was tucked beneath her tiny chin. The other lay limply at her side. Her skinny legs were motionless, splayed like a frog’s on a science class table. “No,” I whispered. “Oh, no.”
“Brynn, I’m scared!” Joshua bawls.
I blink away the horrible thoughts and stop moving, trying to focus on Joshua and what he is saying. But in my mind, all I can think is, Poor baby. Poor, poor baby.
Claire
Claire is consumed by a fear so deep and complete that it courses through her veins, infuses the soft tissue, radiates through her bones, a fear that takes her breath away. It has nothing to do with her well-being, her own safety, but Joshua’s.
She can feel everyone’s eyes on her, waiting to see what she will do next. Charm’s mother looks as if she wants to say something, but thinks better of it.
“Maybe we should go inside,” the man in the leather jacket says. Numbly, Claire follows him into the store and looks up to see Joshua pressing his body close to the bookshelves, his fingers sliding along the book spines as if they are piano keys.
“Why is everyone yelling?” he asks, moving cautiously toward his mother.
“We’re just talking, Josh,” she says, and gently turns him by the shoulders, guiding him toward the back of the store.
“Why is everyone crying?” He pulls away from her, his little fists clenched at his sides. Claire reaches up and touches her face, which she realizes is wet.
“It’s just the rain, Joshua,” she says, though she knows that if she touched her fingers to her tongue she would taste salt. She has to get him out of here. Doesn’t want him to hear this conversation. Yes, he knows he’s adopted, knows that he was left at a fire station. But for Joshua to hear that Allison may be his birth mother would be too much. It’s too much for Claire to comprehend. It can’t be true. It just can’t.
“Can we go home now?” Joshua pleads. “I want to go home.” Claire can hear the fear in his voice, knows that he is worried that these strangers are intruders, bad people who might harm them.
“Josh, once these people leave, we are going home. I promise. We just need a few more minutes.” Joshua looks concernedly at Charm, who is still crying. “She’ll be okay, Josh. I’ll make sure she’s all right,” Claire assures him. He studies her face and she f
orces a smile. “Maybe Brynn will take you upstairs for a little bit.” Claire looks expectantly at Brynn, who doesn’t seem to hear her. “Brynn,” she says more forcefully so that Brynn startles. “Will you take Joshua upstairs?” Brynn nods. “Just stay away from Dad’s tools, Josh. I’ll be up in a minute. Don’t you worry, it’s not like the robbery. Not at all.” He looks skeptically at the door that leads to the second-floor apartment and doesn’t move until Brynn reaches for his hand. Together they ascend the steps to the apartment.
Once Claire is sure that they are safely upstairs, out of earshot, she goes to the phone and dials her husband’s cell phone number. “Jonathan, can you come to the store? Please. I need you.”
Allison
Claire walks us over to the reading area and somehow, very politely, offers us seats. Despite everything, I’m reminded of how much I admire her. Always so calm and collected. Always so poised. “Girls, I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but I need you to try and tell me. I’m more than a little confused.”
Charm and I sit side by side on the sofa. I wish Brynn were here, sitting next to me. I can’t believe I told Claire that I was Joshua’s mother. I can’t bear to look at her. Claire sits on the coffee table, facing Charm and me. Reanne and Binks are standing close by, lurking like turkey vultures. Charm begins to cry again. “Allison, please tell me what’s going on. Are you Joshua’s birth mother?” I can hear in Claire’s voice how scared she is. This is one thing we have in common—we are both terrified, but for completely different reasons. She’s afraid I’m here to take Joshua away from her and I’m afraid that the only person in the past five years who hasn’t treated me like I was a monster is about to realize that’s just what I am.
I nod and Claire’s face crumples with grief.
“I’m so sorry,” I say in a rush, wanting to explain, but not knowing where to begin. “I left the baby with Christopher.”
“Who’s Christopher?” Claire asks.
“My brother,” Charm says softly, the tears starting all over again. Her eyes feel swollen from crying and her face still stings from her mother’s slap. “And Joshua’s father,” she says bitterly, directing the words at her mother.
“Bullshit,” Reanne says in disbelief. She looks me up and down. “Christopher would never get involved with her.”
“Well, he did,” I snap. I turn back to Claire. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
A loud snort of disbelief erupts from Reanne. Claire turns to her and says through her tears, “I really think you should leave now.”
Reanne works her mouth as if trying to hold back another discharge of profanity. Instead, a soft expulsion of air rushes out and a cranberry-red flush rises from her neckline and spreads to her cheeks. “Well, excuse me for wanting to check on my daughter.” Her voice rises to a shout. “Excuse me for wanting to warn her about some psycho, murdering bitch! Do you know who that girl is?” Reanne sputters. “That’s Allison Glenn. She threw her newborn daughter in the Druid River five years ago. You should have rotted in jail!”
My stomach twists. I didn’t think there could be anything more horrible than Claire finding out about Joshua, but this is so much worse.
“How do you know that?” Claire demands. “How do you know she’s the girl? The paper never said who she was.” Her eyes settle on me, not wanting to believe what Reanne is saying, but I hear the doubt beginning in her voice. “You can’t be that girl.”
“It wasn’t hard to figure out. I knew I heard her name before and then it came to me. I know someone who works at Cravenville. She told me all about her.” Reanne turns toward me again and says harshly, “You had a baby girl and you didn’t want it, so you dumped her in the river!”
“Shut up, Mom!” Charm pleads.
“Allison?” Claire asks me incredulously. “Is that what happened? Was that you?”
“I can explain.” I start to cry.
Brynn
I’m sitting in the bathroom, on the edge of the bathtub. Joshua is on the couch, still fast asleep. I can hear them downstairs, yelling and shouting, and I put my hands over my ears so I don’t have hear, but still the noise creeps through so I turn on the tap. Water rushes out of the faucet and the shouts are drowned out.
Now the running water becomes the sound of the pouring rain that fell that night years ago, pounding, slapping against the window.
When I came back upstairs I looked down on Joshua’s little sister. So quiet and still. “No,” I whispered. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Allison murmured with exhaustion, trying to lift her head to see.
“Oh, Allison,” I said sadly. “You don’t have to worry anymore.” And even as I spoke, I knew that Allison would be relieved with this outcome. Not happy, mind you, but relieved. I stood there for a long time, not knowing what to do. Finally, I spoke, though I don’t know if she even heard me. “I’ll take care of it,” I told her as I tucked another blanket tightly around her and tilted a water bottle to her lips. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Crying, I bent down to pick up the motionless infant, my tears beading and rolling off her bare skin like rain on parched earth, too little, too late. Unsteadily, I made my way down the stairs, trying to focus my eyes on anything but the child in my arms. I moved through the living room where our family pictures told the story of our childhoods. Allison and I were evenly represented in the number of pictures on the “Wall of Lame,” as Allison called it—until Allison was thirteen. By this time, Allison was an accomplished swimmer, soccer player, gymnast, speller. The wall was lined with pictures of Allison holding various ribbons and trophies. In each of them she was smiling humbly, an “aw, shucks” look on her face.
But the pictures didn’t tell the backstory, though. They didn’t show that minutes before the snapshot was taken Allison had elbowed her soccer opponent so hard in the ribs that they both ended up with bruises, or that she stared at her nine-year-old classmate so intently that he got flustered and misspelled leucoplast, a word he could spell in his sleep. Not that Allison ever cheated—she never did that, she didn’t need to—but she was intimidating in a way that people liked, encouraged even. Her teachers thought of her as the student that only came around once in a lifetime. The girls were jealous but felt bad about it; the boys thought she was beautiful, unattainable. My parents thought she was perfect.
I never thought that Allison was perfect, although I admired her determination and her drive. But I knew something that everyone else seemed to overlook—that my sister was human. That she threw up before every single big test she had to take. That she would make herself do one hundred and fifty sit-ups every night before bed. That she had nightmares that scared her so badly she would creep into my room at night and crawl into bed with me. At the time, I had thought that the bad dreams had finally stopped haunting her, because she hadn’t come to my room for months. But now I knew why. She didn’t want me to know that she was pregnant.
In the months before she gave birth, I saw something else about my sister that no one else did. She was in love. The girl that everyone said was so smart not to have a serious boyfriend, the girl who was focused so much on her sports and school, was desperately in love with someone. This poor baby’s father. She never told me anything about him, but I knew something was up. When she thought that no one was looking, I could see it. Her shoulders would relax. A small smile would play at the corners of her mouth and a dreamy, unfocused look would come into her eyes. For once in her life my sister looked happy. I also knew that sometimes she snuck out of the house at night. One time I watched from my bedroom window and saw her climb into a car, its headlights off, a lone figure in the driver’s seat. In the shadows I saw them embrace and kiss desperately, passionately.
But then something had happened. The hazy, dreamy light in her eyes had been once again replaced with a ferocious single-mindedness and she was studying even harder, working out even more. Even though I held the results of her pregnancy in my arms, it was nearly impossibl
e for me to imagine that this little life had been inside her while she was working so hard.
I made my way through the kitchen and out the back door. A cool summer wind smoothed the hair from my forehead. After the stifling air of Allison’s bedroom, I lifted my face to the sky to welcome the rain that fell. I rearranged the towel around the baby as if to shield it from the elements. The darkening night sky was indecisive. It didn’t know what it was going to do next. In the south the moon was high and bright, peeking through marbled clouds that moved swiftly. There was just enough light for me to be able to see where I was going, but it was dark enough for me to conceal the sweet package I held in my arms.
Allison and I had rarely ventured into the small woods behind our home. Our mother had warned us away from the Druid River that ran alongside our woods. “A river is a living, moving thing,” she told us. “You stick one toe in that water and it will snatch you in and pull you under. You’ll never get out once you fall in.” I used to think that Allison’s nightmares were about drowning in that river. She would cry out and wake up gasping for air and rubbing her eyes, as if trying to rub the water away.
The weak light from the moon was extinguished once I entered the Grimm’s fairy-tale woods of my childhood. Our mother had terrified us with tales of lyme disease and small feral animals carrying rabies. Clutching the baby, I imagined ticks attaching their diseased-filled barbs to my skin and settling in to drink my blood and foam-mouthed animals hiding behind trees, ready to pounce. Sliding my feet carefully along the muddy, rocky earth, I felt my way toward the river. I ducked under low-hanging sharp branches covered with new leaves. In daylight, they would be tender and green, but here the darkness gave the appearance of glowering hairy arms. As I approached, I could hear the rushing of the Druid River, loud and wild-sounding. My tennis shoes squelched deeply into the mud. We’d had record rains that spring and all the creeks and rivers were stealthily widening, ingesting the land.